-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Reminder CFP: Contaminating Bodies working session (ASTR
2010)--deadline for submissions May 31st
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 08:37:37 -0400
From: jill stevenson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
<[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
*Contaminating Bodies: The Threat of Women on Performative Display*
Working Session at the ASTR/TLA/CORD 2010 Conference
November 18-21, 2010**
Cultural perceptions of female bodies have often been grounded in
ancient notions of biology—women as leaky, loose, uncontrolled—and
influenced by fears about that physiology’s power over others. For
example, beliefs about menstrual blood as a mortally treacherous
contagion still exist. Moreover, notions of the dangerously excessive
female body endure in contemporary pop-culture images that seek to
contain female appetites for food, sex, and power.
This working session invites scholars who are interested in finding
cross-disciplinary/cross-theoretical ways of examining how these
recurring ideas/images impacted practices involving the public display
of female bodies, control over such display, and, consequently, women’s
participation in public performances. Significantly, in many periods and
contexts where women did not appear in dramatic events publicly, they
did participate in public dancing. We are seeking work across dance and
theatre that considers not only the ways in which these genres empower
the female body (often as a defiant presence), but also how our
perceptions of empowerment through dance and theatre differ.
We are especially interested in exploring the idea of contagion and how
cultures interpret performative displays as imbuing female bodies with
the power to “pollute” spectators. Although we might relegate such ideas
to the past, theories of disgust explored by Mary Douglas and William
Ian Miller suggest that these fears persist. Theories of contamination
may help us better understand not only historical responses to female
bodies, but also negative responses to contemporary stagings of women
whose bodies resist hegemonic “ideals.” Negative responses to the film
/Precious/ and to magazine layouts featuring “plus-size” models offer
two recent examples.
We invite work from a range of historical periods, geographies, and
theoretical frameworks. We will organize participants into smaller
working groups that encourage dialogue across disciplinary, theoretical,
and historical boundaries. Members of these groups will exchange short
papers before the conference. Each participant will prepare brief
written feedback for the other members’ papers, which they will exchange
and discuss at the conference session. We will follow this small group
work with a larger group discussion about conclusions and connections
that emerged from this work, and possibilities for further study.
*Please submit a 200-word abstract and brief bio to _both_ Jen-Scott
Mobley ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Jill
Stevenson ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) by
Monday, May 31^st *. Feel free to email Jen-Scott or Jill with questions
about this session. For general information about the American Society
for Theatre Research/Theatre Library Association/Congress on Research in
Dance 2010 Conference, please visit
http://www.astr.org/Conference/tabid/55/Default.aspx
*Please feel free to forward this call to both individuals and
listservs. We hope to attract scholars & artists from a variety of
fields and perspectives. Thanks.*
--
Abigail Ann Young (Dr), Associate Editor/ Records of Early English Drama/
170 St George St Ste. 810/ Toronto Ontario Canada/ M5R 2M8
Telephone: 416-978-6500 (after 04/01/2010) / FAX: 416-978-6504 (as of 16/12/2009) [log in to unmask]
List-owner of REED-L <http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/reed-l.html>
http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/ => REED's home page
http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/stage.html => our Web guide
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~young => my home page
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